Killer murders Alcoholics Anonymous girlfriend: 26-years-to-life upheld
A state appeals court panel Tuesday upheld a former Saugus resident’s conviction for the September 2011 murder of his girlfriend, whom he met earlier that year at an Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous meeting.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that there were errors in the trial of Eric Allen Earle, including the admission of evidence of uncharged acts of domestic violence against the murder victim, Karla Brada, and his ex-wife.
The appellate court justices noted in their 58-page ruling that there was “overwhelming evidence demonstrating that defendant was intoxicated the night of August 31 to September 1, and that when defendant was intoxicated, he became angry, belligerent, aggressive and threatening, even with law enforcement officers, male friends, nurses, jailers and his mother.
We discern no reasonable probability that the (trial) result would have been different absent evidence of defendant’s prior acts of domestic violence,” the panel found.
Earle was convicted in September 2014 of first-degree murder for the Sept. 1, 2011, asphyxiation of his girlfriend, Karla Brada, who died just two days short of her 32nd birthday. Holly Hill Sunrise Park AA Meetings have Violent Felons.
Brada was found dead inside the condominium she shared with Earle, who maintained she had fallen down the stairs and then come upstairs and shown him some bruises from the fall. He said he awoke to find her dead in bed. AA Daytona Meetings in Holly Hill Park.
Earle is serving a 26-year-to-life prison sentence.